Hajja Salesjana October-December 2019

28 H AJJA S ALESJANA Could this be the reason God sometimes allows our wounds to stay open? Fortunately for us, forgiveness is not a feeling. But why doesn't God take away our feeling of rage and hurt? Forgiveness isn’t optional in the Christian life. We bind ourselves to forgive each time we pray the Our Father, the one prayer Jesus taught his people. “Forgive us our trespasses,” we pray, “as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Most of us, if we’re being honest, find such a prospect terrifying. What fate might befall me if God in his mercy chose to forgive me only as fully as I have forgiven those I hate? Fortunately for us, forgiveness is not a feeling. Forgiveness is a choice. Forgiveness is a refusal to define another person by his sin, a prayer that God give us a merciful heart whenever we’re inclined to rehearse yet again the list of another’s faults. Most of us know this that forgiveness is a decision we may have to make over and again for years. But it can be awfully discouraging to find that after decades of seeking to love like Jesus a certain name still elicits feelings of rage and shame and vengeance. Perhaps that too is a product of God’s mercy. It would, of course, be far more pleasant if with the act of forgiveness came an absolute release of all negative emotions and a complete healing of all painful memories. But if God chooses not to work in that way, it must be for our good. “All things work for good for those who love God,” St. Paul tells us (Rom 8:28), so certainly the inner workings of a heart surrendered to God must be a result of his grace. But what good could possibly come of feelings of anger and pain and betrayal that are dredged up again and again, sometimes for a lifetime? By Meg Hunter-Kilmer (Aleteia)